18 September 2017

Mina's accident might change harness design

Mina Leslie-Wujastyk was taken to hospital two weeks ago after a bad up-side-down fall on Rainshadow 9a. She is OK now and has said it was probably due to the harness being too big for her. Having watched the video and talking to Mina, who wants to spread awareness, here are my five factors, besides the size, that possibly had some impact on why she turned up-side-down. Falling and rotating sideways: Prior to the fall she was standing high on her right foot. As she fell she rotated to the right with her right foot still high up. As the rope caught her, her right hip had turned almost sideways to the wall, still having her leg high. Tie-in point moved towards her right hip: The up-side-down fall could possibly be explained by her tie-in point had moved some 10+ cm sideways towards her right hip. A couple of the cm can be explained by her harness being over sized but most of the movement of the tie-in point were probably due to: long elastic leg loops (2) and the very long and loose strap under the tie-in point (1). See picture. Body type, bolt placement and belay: Further more, as Mina is 170 cm and 57 kilo with relatively small hips and rather broad shoulders, her upper body including her head is placed far out from her center of gravity. The bolt was placed midways out in a roof and as she fell standing from the lip further out of it, the rope dragged her inwards. Lastly, the belay was normal meaning it could have been more dynamic. Lessons-learned could be: In order to avoid having the tie-in point moving towards the hip, harnesses should have shorter elastic leg-loops which also should include warnings. The elastic leg-loop is in one way misleading as you think it fits when it is in reality maybe five cm too big. In practice, it would be great with in between sizes if you can not adjust the leg loops. Further more, the producers should reduce the length of the distance from the leg loop to the tie-in point (3) as well as make the tie-in point (1) more narrow.
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Mina Leslie-Wujastykhas done her third 8A in 2009, Wenn Kuadrick Butter War in Zillertal. Mina says, "Trav cool moves. Soft?" Sometimes Traverses are graded softer but in this case it is likely not the case as there are three other 8A ascents in the data base of the boulder.

Mina Leslie-Wujastyk has done her seventh 8A during the last 12 months, The Arete With the Pocket in Chironico. "soft, really nice problem, kept falling off the end til now! :)", maybe due to fighting with temperatures around zero degrees for some weeks now in Chironico :-)

Ukclimbing has a nice interview with Mina Leslie-Wujastyk who has done four 8A's this winter.